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Prentice laments 'cumbersome' student enrolment lotteries

Author of the article:

Trevor Howell • Calgary Herald

Publishing date:

January 29, 2015 • 4 minute read

Shane Byciuk is concerned that his son Kyron may not be able to attend Cranston School across the street from their home next September. Because of overcrowding the school has been forced to use a lottery enrolment draw. It could result in his son being bussed to McKenzie.Gavin Young/ Calgary Herald

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Premier Jim Prentice said Wednesday that student enrolment lotteries are a clumsy quick fix for school boards grappling with overcrowded classrooms but provided no alternatives as the province stares at a gaping hole in its upcoming budget.

“In the short term, the challenge that the school boards face is a lack of capacity in certain communities for children and they’ve been dealing with this the best way they can,” Prentice told reporters in Edmonton.

“Lotteries are a very cumbersome way to deal with it (and) we don’t want to be doing that,” he said. “And that’s why I’ve indicated we have to get caught up on school infrastructure.”

During the PC leadership campaign, Prentice said it was unacceptable for “the richest society in North America” to be running lotteries to determine whether five-year-old kids would be accepted to their designated schools.

Yet, that’s exactly how Alberta’s largest school board is dealing with it.

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This week, the Calgary Board of Education confirmed up to 42 schools offering regular and alternative programs may use student placement draws for the 2015-2016 school year, up from 29 schools last year.

For Calgary parent Shane Byciuk, that could mean his son, Kyron, will be bused to an overflow school instead of walking across the street to his designated school in Cranston, one of the dozens of overcrowded schools on the lottery list.

“I look out the window and there’s the school, 20 feet away,” Byciuk said. “I never imagined it would be an issue registering him there. I figured, ‘We live right across the street so we should be good to go.’ Apparently not.”

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On Tuesday, the province approved 19 new modular classrooms for the CBE, including two for the southeast school. It’s unclear whether the new units will improve the odds for kids like Kyron.

“The problem with these new communities … is the population has grown so much over the last seven years that even when they started the planning process, I don’t think they anticipated how fast Calgary would grow,” Byciuk said.

During last fall’s byelection campaign, Prentice, flanked by Education Minister Gordon Dirks, announced a $2-billion plan to to build 55 new schools and upgrade another 20 by 2020.

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But in December, Prentice warned capital projects — including schools promised just months earlier — could be deferred while the province deals with an “unprecedented fiscal hole” triggered by plummeting oil prices — a point he reiterated Wednesday.

“In the circumstances that we are currently in we’ll be assessing the capital plan, population growth, population changes in the province, but we will carry on to make sure that we have schools for our children,” he said. “… but at the end of the day we need adequate schools for the children that we have in our province.”

In an email, Dirks ‎said “all projects” are under review while the government assembles its budget.

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“We are committed to respond to growing enrolment pressures and build much-needed schools in the context of fiscal prudence,” he said.

Liberal MLA Kent Hehr said he had no confidence the government would be able to fulfil the premier’s byelection promise to build and modernize 75 school projects by 2020.

“They played fast and loose with their promises and have no way to deliver on them,” Hehr said. “Whether they have to go in debt or raise taxes, these kids can’t wait. To have promised these schools and not delivered on them, especially given the dire need, has been irresponsible.”

NDP MLA Deron Bilous said the government can no longer afford to rely so heavily on fluctuating oil prices and needs to consider more stable sources of revenue.

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“We’re basically gambling with the future of our province by tying classrooms and schools to the price of oil where critical infrastructure should not be based on volatile energy prices,” Bilious said.

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